As you may already know from other articles or talks I've given, I'm not at all in favor of parents acting as coaches for technique, strategy, or physical conditioning. Ideally, your child should have a coach who possesses more than enough training, knowledge, and experience to coach them.

However, your child's mental development is largely the responsibility of the parents. Teaching them to be self-confident, to make decisions, and to cope with anxiety-inducing situations like exams or competitions is the parents' responsibility, among other things because they have the most influence on them until the age of 12 or 13.

Being your child's mental coach is already a very complicated task, so I recommend that you don't also try to be their technique coach. You'll almost certainly neglect the development of their mental strength. I could give you more reasons why parents shouldn't act as technique coaches, but I'll just emphasize that being their mental coach is the most important role you can take on for your child's potential career as a golfer.

But of course, you might be wondering, "How can I be their mental coach?" Well, the first step is to know what situations children and young people usually find most difficult to deal with when they practice competitive sports.

Here are the 17 most difficult situations that young athletes face when developing a competitive activity:

1. Dealing with doubts and negative thoughts about your performance in competition (40.1%)

2. Letting oneself be carried away by mistakes, feeling frustrated and angry (40%)

3. Worrying too much about what other people might think about your game (coach, parents, friends) (37.6%)

4. Playing hesitantly or without conviction when facing skilled players (35.8%)

5. Maintain good expectations about your performance (34.7%)

6. Putting pressure on oneself for the result or victory (34.1%)

7. Playing with fear and doubt after making a mistake (33.6%)

8. Perform more consistently in training than in competition (33.2%)

9. Forget the mistakes and keep playing calmly (33.0%)

10. Being overly perfectionistic, which means wanting to perform perfectly and without errors throughout the entire lap. (31.9%)

11. Feeling hurt and belittled by critical comments from your coach (30.3%)

12. Feeling tense and worried during the competition (28.6%)

13. Having low self-confidence in sports (26.5%)

14. Lack of well-defined objectives (25.4%)

15. Overanalyzing mistakes and overthinking how to have perfect technique (22.8%)

16. Experiencing difficulties in playing freely and confidently in decisive moments (22.6%)

17. Associating personal self-esteem with performance or the outcome of the competition (18.4%)

These 17 situations are simply the result of a survey, but they can provide useful information about your child's needs. However, the best approach is to observe and ask your child which situations they find most difficult to cope with before, during, and after competition. Then, work together to find the best solutions to these challenges. In future articles, we'll explore strategies and how you can help your child deal with these common competitive situations.